Deep Shadow

definitely not a marketable gas.

It was 4:57 p.m. He and Will had been underwater for nearly an hour, and they had been burrowing through karst vents and chambers for at least fifteen minutes.

Tomlinson thought, It’ll be dark soon. The sun goes down in an hour.

Not that it mattered. He was now resigned to the fact that this was one marina sunset he would definitely have to miss. Sunset was always a fun and sociable time at Dinkin’s Bay—there were lots of beach-weary, languid women around, usually—and it pained him to think that he would never enjoy another marina party.

Tomlinson moved his wrist closer to his eyes and focused on the sweep hand of his new watch. As he did, he wondered how long he could hold his breath. Two minutes maybe? Possibly longer—he hadn’t smoked weed in almost a week, after all. His regulator was right there, somewhere in the darkness, if he wanted it, but he was determined not to use the thing. The air belonged to Will Chaser. It would be his parting gift to the boy, a final act of kindness.

Into Tomlinson’s mind came a sentence he had written long ago: The only light visible to us is that which we create for others.

Light. The watch’s sweep hand was hypnotic. It was as thin as a hypodermic yet bright in the cavernous blackness—a sight that produced another surge of pleasure in him—and it shifted his focus from the boy to his friend Doc Ford.

The watch Tomlinson was wearing was a big one with a big name—a Graham Chronofighter Scarab. It was similar to the watch the guys at the marina had given Ford for his birthday.

Well . . . actually, it was the watch the marina had purchased for the biologist. Tomlinson had intercepted the thing and kept it for himself—a fact that was yet another painful reminder that he had lived an imperfect life.

What an ass I am to steal Doc’s new watch after all he’s done for me. My God!

Marion Ford wasn’t a complainer, but he had mentioned more than once that his Rolex Submariner was an undependable timepiece and impossible to read in low light. He had also mentioned what at the time was an esoteric wrist chronograph—the Graham.

Ford liked the watch, that was obvious from the accumulation of catalogs and literature that Tomlinson had found scattered around the lab. But he wasn’t a man to rush into anything.

Because the Graham had a distinctive lever on the left side of the casing, Doc believed that it would be perfect for timing procedures in the lab. British pilots had used the same thumb trigger to time bombing runs during World War II because the human thumb is better than a trigger finger when it comes to starting and stopping a watch.

Doc had said it, so no one at the marina doubted it was true.

Chipping in to buy the Chronofighter for Doc was Tomlinson’s idea. He then proceeded to do his own extensive research, a tangent that had turned into a full-blown binge—an Internet-and-retail frenzy—that had after a week or so caused Ford to become suspicious. Tomlinson had never owned a wristwatch—not that anyone could remember, anyway—so why the sudden interest? The brass chronograph aboard No Mas, that was as close as he’d ever come.

When the dust had settled, Tomlinson finally chose the Chronofighter from a short list of also-rans: a Bathys Benthic—which Tomlinson loved because of its surf bum mystique—and a Bell & Ross Phantom, a Luminox, a Blancpain Fifty Fathoms and a Traser.

When asked why he’d chosen the Chronofighter, Tomlinson’s official response was honest. The Graham was a classic timepiece and the easiest to read at night. The face was articulately luminous, blue on yellow, and because of the way the sapphire crown was shaped the numerals and hands were magnified when viewed from the side—a little like watching fish in a rounded aquarium. And the thumb trigger, of course, made it the perfect choice for a man who often had to time lab procedures.

This was all true, but the actual deal maker was more complex. The Chronofighter had an elegant British swagger, which was very unlike Ford. It was understated and cool—which admittedly was a little bit like the biologist but not enough to tip the scales.

The deciding factor, in truth, was that after all the research Tomlinson had done he had fallen in love with the Chronofighter, too. It wasn’t just a watch, it was a serious piece of navigational equipment and ideal for celestial charting.

When the Graham arrived, Tomlinson had opened the box in private and he was hooked. The density of the watch, the weight of the thing on his wrist, its precision tolerances and horological beauty, were too much for him to resist.

So Tomlinson had done a selfish thing. He had kept Ford’s Chronofighter even though it was purchased with the marina’s money. Days later, though, he covered his tracks by ordering a more subdued version of the same watch for Doc. Tomlinson had paid for the thing out of his own checking account so it wasn’t exactly stealing, but it was close enough to require a careful series of rationalizations to make what he’d done palatable.

A blue watch face with a silver bezel, Tomlinson had rationalized, would not complement Marion Ford’s no- nonsense approach to life. A Chronofighter Black Seal, orange on black, was a better fit for a man who eschewed bright colors and bravado.

It was a lie, of course. Only one of many untruths, half-truths and bald-faced inventions to which he had subjected Ford over the years, a fact that Tomlinson now admitted to himself.

I took my best pal’s watch. I slept with the woman he’s dating.That’s low, man. Dying underwater, like the bottom-feeder I am—it’s exactly what I deserve.

In Tomlinson’s brain, a refrain echoed: I’m a fraud. A fraud . . . I am a silly, selfish fraud.

At his very core, Tomlinson believed this was true. So why wait to die? He was afraid of what came next, but the case he was building against himself didn’t leave an honorable option.

For an instant, Tomlinson came close to exhaling the last breath he would ever take. He told himself he should welcome whatever came next in life’s strange journey by inhaling water, which was the same as inhaling death.

He thought about it. He thought about it intensely, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Giving up was not the same as giving in, he realized—a last-ditch tenacity that would not have surprised Ford, but it was like a revelation to Tomlinson.

Truth was, he didn’t fear death. What terrified him was the prospect of not living.

As his bloodstream exhausted the last of the air in his lungs, Tomlinson thought frantically, Screw the next incarnation! I’m not ready to leave—not yet.

He had just bought a new watch, for chrissake!

Instead of inhaling water, Tomlinson decided to continue holding his breath as long as he could and wait for death to take him. He dreaded the panic that was to come. He feared the loss of control, the frenzy. He feared the escalating terror and even the broken fingernails. He was terrified of the whole sad endgame, but that’s the way it would undoubtedly be.

Jesus Christ, what a miserable way to go—like some bat-blind catfish. I’m a bottom-feeder who’s finally paying for his sins.

That gave Tomlinson pause. How could the Buddha, the Serene Prince, have his fingers in this ugly business? Universal consciousness had played a role? This was hard for Tomlinson to accept.

It’s a shitty trick to pull on anyone, I don’t care who’s behind it!

Yes, it was. At least three times in previous years, Tomlinson believed that he had died only to be reborn to some unfathomable purpose that he had yet to divine. But those deaths had been as swift as a lightning strike. ZAP, and that was all she wrote. None of this having to consciously decide the moment of one’s own departure bullshit.

There was no avoiding it, though. This was the hand he had been dealt. If he drank down the last of the kid’s air, Tomlinson would enter eternity as he had lived—as a fraud, a selfish fraud. He was determined not to let that happen.

If I don’t want to die like a fraud, I have to start living like the person I pretend to be . . .